karadekoolaid wrote:I made a pizza. Not particularly inspiring, but I used up (a) a pot of fresh tomato sauce (b) a chunk of Buffalo mozzarella and (c) some cooked artichoke hearts left over from Tuesday´s artichoke balls!!

I think you've just convinced me that making pizza with some shop bought peshwari naan given to me a few days ago is the order of the day. All I need to do is defrost my tomato sauce, slice up some mushrooms and green chillies and pile them on! For cheese it will have to be mature Cheddar.

So far I’ve made a 3 layer chocolate cake and I’ve got a buttermilk pound cake loaf in the oven. I’m also planning a gin drizzle cake and some maple syrup & bourbon cupcakes. All for a family party on Saturday. Was meant to be making it all tomorrow but I’ve swapped my day off cos of the weather.

Freeze the butter then grate it into the flour ... add the rest of the dry ingredients and the buttermilk ... combine with a fork, tip out onto a floured surface, knead gently just a couple of kneads so it's a regular shape, roll gently so it's still a good couple of inches thick, cut out, place on baking tray and leave for ten mins before baking.

The grated frozen butter works for a crumble too ... it's easier to hold a lump of frozen butter than to 'work it' with your fingers ... or so DD tells me.

Last edited by suffolk on March 1st, 2018, 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This is wonderful and made with half a bottle of ready-made sundried tomato paste instead of making your own is a doddle! https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... ottolenghiWe always make one from a whole sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry so it takes a bit longer in the oven and we usually use half a block of feta, or whatever goats cheese we have around. I also marinade the feta cubes in oil from a jar of sundried tomatoes with loads of extra dried oregano. The fresh oregano from our pot outside in the garden looks nice enough but doesn't have much flavour, I'm afraid.

This evening I baked another batch of the Dan Lepard Spelt Crackers. I make them quite often, but ths time I used some stoneground spelt flour from Guedelon in France. It's a lot finer than the Dove's Farm spelt that I get from Sainsbury and Tesco. The crackers have turned out much crispier than before. With the Dove's flour they are more like Digestives. With the finer grade French flour, they "snap".

Today I baked a lot of pastry blind pastry cups to be filled next week together with some dried out choux buns. I filled some of the pastry cups with a cheese and chive, eggy mixture to take to the Red Lion tomorrow when I will be collecting a starter of sourdough mother. They will be a thank you to the dough chef.

The pastry was a poppy seed, nigella and paprika one, which has given a nice crisp finish. The scrappulings were enough for a small pastry flan dish which I added the end of the eggy cheese mixture. It was nice for a late lunch.

While the oven was on I also experimented with eggs cocotte. Sauteed leeks and garlic at the bottom, broken egg into that, with a circle of cream over and cheese on top with some garden herbs pureed. Slightly over cooked, but I will learn for next time.

Squidgy spicy apple cake in the oven as we speak ... we were talking about this recipe on the muscovado sugar thread. My dark "soft" muscovado was rock hard so I popped it in the microwave initially for 1 minute on medium (it's pretty powerful - 850 or 950w I think) and then gave it another 30 secs. It was fine.

Not sure if this is baked in the sense that the category means, but a brioche and butter pudding. The brioche had bits of orange peel in it and was pretty good on it's own, but needed eating up. I added sultanas and some dried fruit left over from Christmas that included apricot and cranberry. Plenty of freshly grated nutmeg which smelled amazing. It's years since I made bread and butter pudding and was I worried the fruit would burn at temperatures suggested in recipes I found, so I put foil on it for most of it's cooking time - it could probably do to crisp up a bit more but the custard had set. The eggs were our French neighbours' ones. It's tempting to skip straight to dessert tonight but I am committed to another eggy thing.

Today baked spelt sourdough; starter made last November, after using it for a loaf, put in fridge November 27th. Refreshed 21/3/18 to make a loaf, then life got in the way, so back in fridge until yesterday.

Starter yesterday before refreshing.

And the finished loaf.

Every day is a good day, it's just that some days are better than others.

Everyone says when using a banneton, make sure every mm is covered in flour, because if it isn’t the dough will stick. As I tried to shake it out, it stuck on the far corner and went flat before my eyes.

Tasted fine, the structure was almost perfect - lots of holes - such a shame.

Every day is a good day, it's just that some days are better than others.

Well, you learn something every day. I had no idea what a banneton was until I looked it up! Thanks dennispc for the education! Sorry it didn't totally work out for you this time. Have you used one before?

KC2 wrote:Well, you learn something every day. I had no idea what a banneton was until I looked it up! Thanks dennispc for the education! Sorry it didn't totally work out for you this time. Have you used one before?

Yes KC2 I’ve used one before - scroll back a few posts on this thread and you’ll see my previous effort plus banneton in the background.

Professional artisan bakers often use a heavily floured cloth in them, OK in a full time bakery not so easy in our domestic setting. The tipping out skill is a combination of speed and gentleness, that’s above my pay scale, particularly when the tray is from a very hot oven!

Not helped by spelt being low in gluten, final proof is a bit weak, difficult to shape - with splet some bakers don’t bother, just drop the dough in and let in find its own level. It doesn’t rise as much as wheat doughs, though this one did. Quite impressive before I knocked back though it stuck to everything!

Every day is a good day, it's just that some days are better than others.

Dennis pc, I think that bread looks lovely....and even in its slightly deflated state, it is very impressive for spelt bread,. I never get a really good rise with spelt.I use a well floured muslin in my banneton, it is nice and fine, so doesn’t spoil the grooves, and is easy to rinse out and dry afterwards. I sometimes drape it in the dishwasher after rinsing to clean it well. As I use muslin for a few things, and the culinary stuff is quite expensive, So I buy packs of muslin nappies.

Thanks for that. I think I have been having a shorter first rise and a longer second one. My kitchen is not very warm unless I am in there cooking. It is only the spelt mix which I find rises less. My starter is rye and very old. I mostly make white bread as OH prefers it, and sometimes wholemeal. I am not very adventurous! I often get an influx of unexpected visitors and I have to make ‘ordinary ‘ bread then as I cannot plan far enough ahead. I have great success with Dan Leppards no kneed bread. It’s great if I only have a couple of hours.

Have you tried accessing your photo and editing it to crop? I did that on my phone recently with a photo of leaves from a tree outside my flat on the Naturewatch thread. There should be an edit / crop function. Just make it a tiny bit smaller, save, try posting it here again, repeat the cropping if still too large. Good luck! Would be nice to see your cake!

These timings came about following a YouTube video mentioning, off the cuff, putting banneton (plus dough) in the fridge for 12 hours. I've made an overnight sweet dough in the fridge, even then the knead was early the following morning, but didn't think it possible for sourdough after knocking back.

Unless you usually get up at 6am, I suggest adjusting things accordingly. That time is rare for me but perhaps I was getting nervous about my bread!

Anyway, all the best to you, look forward to seeing how you get on.

Every day is a good day, it's just that some days are better than others.